Microsoft has dark visions of what will happen if Google's big courtroom win against Oracle holds up on appeal. If Google's position that APIs can't be copyrighted stands, it will "destabilize" the entire software industry, write Microsoft lawyers in an amicus brief [PDF] filed this week at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Oracle lost its courtroom battle to take a chunk out of Google's Android system using Java copyrights and patents last year. But now Oracle is appealing, and this week some allies showed up to tell the court they support Oracle's position. Most notably, Microsoft filed a brief together with NetApp and EMC.

Microsoft focuses on Oracle's argument that copyright supports "non-literal" elements of software. In other words, Google can be found a copyist—even if there's no actual copying of code. The "structure, sequence, and organization" (or SSO) of software "can, in some instances, be protected by the copyright in the work." Copyright violations can be found in a software case "even when the defendant did not copy the underlying developers' code," Microsoft insists, because the defendant has copied "some other, non-literal element of the software."

Overall, the Microsoft brief is a plea for the survival of a copyright doctrine that is quite vague. Microsoft wants "some" protection for software structures. Not for every program, but for "some" programs. "To be clear, amici do not suggest that those [structure] elements of every computer program are copyrightable, or that copyright in Oracle's Java platform would prevent second-comers from using the platform to foster further software development or create competing products," the Microsoft lawyers write. Other defenses, like fair use, must be considered. "But the promise of some threshold copyright protection... is a critically important driver of research and investment... and rescinding that promise would have sweeping and harmful effects throughout the software industry."

If judges lean toward a world in which copyright is about simply copying, in other words, the consequences will be disastrous.

Reading US District Court Judge Alsup's order supporting Google [PDF], one gets the sense that this is exactly what he would like to see. He chronicles the history of SSO copyright claims and notes that judges have looked dimly on them in recent years. A 1986 decision about dental software was the "high-water mark" for SSO copyright claims, and that decision has been criticized by multiple appeals courts in subsequent years.

Other organizations supporting Oracle include the Business Software Alliance, which filed a brief emphasizing that the bar for copyright on software is supposed to be low, and it should include the type of declaratory code and headers in the Java APIs that Oracle is trying to litigate over.

The Picture Archive Council of America and the Graphic Artists Alliance also filed a brief [PDF] arguing that Google's win on "fair use" should fail because Google copied "key source code." The argument seems to be that because the district court showed "little respect for the creativity involved in Oracle's works," the image-licensing business of these two groups would somehow be endangered by a fair use win for Google.

The results of this appeal are hard to predict. Still, Oracle has a giant hill to climb. Google essentially won twice—on API copyright and on fair use—so it has two ways to come out unscathed. But if Oracle, with support from other industry titans, manages to win on API copyright, it will certainly make it easier to have more copyright battles in the software business that don't involve much "copying" as most people understand the term.

Microsoft is running scared now because this will allow others to implement "fake" Windows that allow all software written for "real" Windows to run on the others, which I am all for. Microsoft would have to truly compete again and we could finally have a real alternative to Windows (yes, I am saying Linux with WINE is *not* a real alternative).

In other news: water is still wet, space is still big, and the sun is still hot. Is anybody else getting sick of the Chicken Little scenarios envisioned by multinational corporations and the U.S. Government/Military if they don't get a blank check to screw over the public? At this point, I think a little chaos would be good for the software world and a little belt-tightening would be good for the federal government and the military.

Microsoft wants "some" protection for software structures. Not for every program, but for "some" programs. "To be clear, amici do not suggest that those [structure] elements of every computer program are copyrightable,

Is it just me, or does this totally read as Microsoft basically saying, "We want OUR stuff to be covered under copyright law so nobody else can use it... but we want nobody else's stuff to be covered so we can steal it at our leisure."?

If judges lean towards a world in which copyright is about simply copying, in other words, the consequences will be disastrous.

So Microsoft is arguing that copyright should be even more expansive and hazardous to work with? Well, I can see that their position would make such a situation even more advantageous against possible competitors.

Quote:

The Picture Archive Council of America and the Graphic Artists Alliance also filed a brief [PDF], arguing that Google's win on "fair use" should fail, because Google copied "key source code." The argument seems to be that because the district court showed "little respect for the creativity involved in Oracle's works," the image-licensing business of these two groups would somehow be endangered by a fair use win for Google.

And thus the Picture Archive Council of America proves they're full of shit. The judge made a very, very good point that the tiny bit that was copied was not key by any remote stretch of the imagination and went to great lengths to drive this home.

Quote:

But if Oracle, with support from other industry titans, manages to win on API copyright, it will certainly make it easier to have more copyright battles in the software business that don't involve much "copying" as most people understand the term.

In other words, copyright will become as twisted and broken as patents are in the tech sector. All the best to wage war on competitors and suppress competition with, my dear.

BTW, it the Graphic Artists Guild not Alliance. and somebody should point out to them that this is more about methodology than copying. So that I can copyright a method of drawing objects using a varied weight line to represent depth of field. or a method of expanding a photo by using the clone tool in photoshop.

Would a ruling that prevents copying of api's also cause problems for services like app.net? I remember that app.net apis and twitter apis were quite similar.

mkuch90 wrote:

Copy-writing an API is the same thing as copy-writing the "Idea" of a machine. Its like saying "I copy-write a device that takes Iron as an input and outputs steel."

Base on my understanding it would be more like "I copy-write a device that takes iron in rectangular blocks of this size and outputs steel." Then google will say "I made a device that takes iron in cylindrical blocks of this size and outputs steel.

Microsoft wants "some" protection for software structures. Not for every program, but for "some" programs. "To be clear, amici do not suggest that those [structure] elements of every computer program are copyrightable,

Is it just me, or does this totally read as Microsoft basically saying, "We want OUR stuff to be covered under copyright law so nobody else can use it... but we want nobody else's stuff to be covered so we can steal it at our leisure."?

Three parts that, two parts "We want to keep enough of a cloud of potential litigation hanging over projects like Samba, WINE, open NTFS implementations, etc. that the enterprise won't touch them, but we don't want to have to litigate."

Microsoft is running scared now because this will allow others to implement "fake" Windows that allow all software written for "real" Windows to run on the others, which I am all for. Microsoft would have to truly compete again and we could finally have a real alternative to Windows (yes, I am saying Linux with WINE is *not* a real alternative).

While Google isn't all rainbows and butterflies, I am getting pretty tired of the constant dog pile on Google. Sun told them they could use the language. It should be irrelevant what Oracle or anyone else thinks about the subject now.

I wonder what Netapp and EMC think about their implementations of the CIFS/SMB suite.

I don't know about EMC, but I do recall NetApp reps repeatedly saying they had worked shoulder to shoulder with MS on their CIFS/SMB interop. Links like this support the idea that MS were, at least at that point in time, OK with NetApp doing a CIFS/SMB impementation on top of their WAFL filesystem.

I don't know about EMC, but I do recall NetApp reps repeatedly saying they had worked shoulder to shoulder with MS on their CIFS/SMB interop. Links like this support the idea that MS were, at least at that point in time, OK with NetApp doing a CIFS/SMB impementation on top of their WAFL filesystem.

But then Google reps will tell you that Sun was, at least in that point in time, OK with the Dalvik...

Microsoft is running scared now because this will allow others to implement "fake" Windows that allow all software written for "real" Windows to run on the others, which I am all for. Microsoft would have to truly compete again and we could finally have a real alternative to Windows (yes, I am saying Linux with WINE is *not* a real alternative).

Making a clone of Windows is hard. Ask the guys at ReactOS how it's going.

Microsoft rose to prominence based on MS-DOS, which became important in large part because various parties managed to clean-room IBM's BIOS. Under the doctrine they are now pushing, that would have been illegal, no?

normally butters wrote:

What a surprise, the Micrappacle syndicate wants copyright to work more like software patents...

Apple has been quiet on this case just as it usually is. It also reduced its lobbying efforts significantly this year and are now far below the Don't be Evil-crowd and of course MS. There is a real difference here - Apple uses existing laws to defend itself, while MS and for that matter Google try to rewrite exciting laws to suit them. Now, you may dislike current US IP legislation - personally I hate it - but the trend to blame Apple for those flaws is irrational and inhibits reasoned debate on the issue.

And now I'll get downvoted because I defended Apple. Ah well. It would have been interesting to see of anyone had a comment on that question, it wasn't meant rethorically.

Microsoft is running scared now because this will allow others to implement "fake" Windows that allow all software written for "real" Windows to run on the others, which I am all for. Microsoft would have to truly compete again and we could finally have a real alternative to Windows (yes, I am saying Linux with WINE is *not* a real alternative).

Umn.. WINE is about as close as you can get regarding "fake" windows without just using MS code (well you can always reverse engineer it to find out about all the kinks and implementation details that nobody should rely on and everybody does).

If the ruling wouldn't stand the WINE guys would have the same problem though because they pretty much do the same. Implementing the Windows API is already hard enough on its own, having to worry about all the bugs in applications makes it pretty much impossible to get a 100% working solution without just copying everything.

That said, what the hell happened with MS? There we thought the worst was behind them with their support for open standards on the web and not trying to kill kittens in their sleep.

Microsoft is running scared now because this will allow others to implement "fake" Windows that allow all software written for "real" Windows to run on the others, which I am all for. Microsoft would have to truly compete again and we could finally have a real alternative to Windows (yes, I am saying Linux with WINE is *not* a real alternative).

Making a clone of Windows is hard. Ask the guys at ReactOS how it's going.

Yep thats what I wanted to say. Its either pretty much impossible or the allegations that ReactOS is just a money making scheme are correct.BTW: Still no 0.3.15 or 0.4? Thats sad...

I'm a little confused by the article. Was Google accused of copying simple structure like:

function copyright_name ()function copyright_name1 ()....Other functions and logic with their code rewrites within the copy functions

or of copying the entire code base and tweaking it?

Based on my understanding of this article, it seems as if MS is asking to invalidate the recent New Egg win.

But, I'm confused. Any help?

For the "structures, sequences and organization" part of the Oracle vs Google trial, Oracle tried to argue that the APIs (class names, methods and parameters) were copyrightable on their own, independent of the implementation of them. The ruling was in favour of Google and the Judge ruled that APIs cannot be copyrighted (you can find the ruling on Groklaw at http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 1173633275).

Microsoft rose to prominence based on MS-DOS, which became important in large part because various parties managed to clean-room IBM's BIOS. Under the doctrine they are now pushing, that would have been illegal, no?

normally butters wrote:

What a surprise, the Micrappacle syndicate wants copyright to work more like software patents...

Apple has been quiet on this case just as it usually is. It also reduced its lobbying efforts significantly this year and are now far below the Don't be Evil-crowd and of course MS. There is a real difference here - Apple uses existing laws to defend itself, while MS and for that matter Google try to rewrite exciting laws to suit them. Now, you may dislike current US IP legislation - personally I hate it - but the trend to blame Apple for those flaws is irrational and inhibits reasoned debate on the issue.

And now I'll get downvoted because I defended Apple. Ah well. It would have been interesting to see of anyone had a comment on that question, it wasn't meant rethorically.

I think youre wrong. Have you noticed that Apple has scaled back the litigation since MS's Anti-trust agreements expired, and now MS is stepping up its game again? Kinda makes you think they are working together.

I think youre wrong. Have you noticed that Apple has scaled back the litigation since MS's Anti-trust agreements expired, and now MS is stepping up its game again? Kinda makes you think they are working together.

I think its much simpler than that. Tim Cook looks at litigation differently than Steve Jobs did. For Jobs, it was personal and there was no backing down. I think that Cook is much more pragmatic. Apple will still litigate, because that is part of doing business. But I think the litigation will be more focused and reasonable.

The hatred I had for Micro$oft for murdering competition in the browser space had slowly faded since the 90s, I though they'd learned their lessons and were now finally starting to rehabilitate. Plus I was starting to feel sorry for their inability to innovate that had allowed Google, Apple, et al to start usurping their position.

Thanks for reminding me of their true colours.

The original lawsuit was horrendous enough, for M$ to attempt necromancy on it just goes to show what depths they're willing to plumb in order to remain the 900lb gorilla of the software industry.

Now I'm off to copyright any of my libraries I can find that contain copy(), move(), update() and delete() methods. I'll be quids in.

But Google wrote their own custom code that implemented those functions.

Oracle is trying to say that function declarations, function names, function arguments (the API) are copyrighted, and anyone trying to use them to implement their own versions of the functions (even for interoperability) is violating their copyright.

Some one with a law degree PLEASE tell me Oracle et al are NOT arguing that the very concept of design should be copyrightable.

IANAL, but, from what I have read, Oracle's argument is basically this. The design and layout and functionality of the API's are a very creative process and as such should be protected under copyright. This is in contrast to viewing them as a definition and specification for compatibility which would mean they aren't copyrightable. It has always been understood that API's are not copyrightable to make it possible to make things compatible.

In my opinion, Oracle bought Sun for one of two main reasons. First, they thought they could syphon money out of the Android market with licensing fees on every phone. Or two, they just want to hurt Android and Google. Remember, Ellison and Jobs were good friends.

The end result is that this would and still might completely destroy Java. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Google wishes it had used Python as the language to turn into byte code. A ruling in Oracle's favor would pretty much destroy any non open source language, as you simply couldn't guarantee that using it wouldn't land you in court.

At the rate Oracle is going ,they plan to extract any bit of cash they can get from Google. Its kind of like showing somebody how to pan for gold ,then they go off on their own ( In another country ) and use the skills that you taught them with devestating effect! Only thing is they didn't give you a cut of their fortune or any shares in their company.

Now you think they owe you big , when really and trulely they worked hard for what they got fair and square .You never took the time to go out and do what they did ,still you want to come up with a way to get in on the money. Sad and Greedy .

I can see a future with these companies carving up every possible creative idea and method ,keeping them to them selves . Charging any new company a kings ransom to get in the door. They forgot where they came from and all those who went before them .

Their vision of the future only includes themselves.

Android is open sourced already, right ? So its not like Google didn't give back anything to the tech community.

A great deal of your frustration can be avoided by simply not commenting on the voting system. It's far more effective to add supporting argumentation and evidence. Whining about the voting system is just going to get you more down votes because:

1. it's viewed as off topic2. lots of people like it3. makes you sound like a sore loser rather than someone with a valid but differing opinion4. you're taking it too personally

Lots of people will down vote simply because they found one [subjective] flaw in your post. Don't let that one flaw be that you commented about the voting system.